A Haunting Spectre
by Cochrane
Summary: Alya was shocked and doubtful when Chloé offered to help with 'Project Adrinette'. But the rich girl promised she had a really good reason…


"Alright, losers, move over, I'm in."

Alya looked up in surprise. In front of her was Chloé, trying awkwardly to squeeze under the chemistry lab table where she and Nino had been hiding.

Fifteen minutes earlier, a teacher had managed to Juleka cry, which had led to Rose becoming akumatized as Princess Fragrance once more. Alya sometimes wondered whether Hawkmoth had run out of budget for new Akuma designs or something.

Ladybug and Chat Noir had instructed the class to stay hidden under their tables, in relative safety from the projectiles Princess Fragrance was shooting this time. With the battle raging on mostly outside, things had soon gotten rather boring. A number of people were playing video games or chatting with their friends. Marinette was gone; apparently she had to do some emergency ironing. Meanwhile Adrien had to leave for a surprise fencing lesson. It was all pretty much business as usual… except for the fact that Chloé had apparently decided to switch tables.

"I'm sorry, what is going on? Why are you here? Why is Sabrina here? Why is she carrying a huge folder labelled 'plans'?", asked Alya, while Nino nodded.

"For all the planning, of course!", said Sabrina excitedly. "I have analysed every angle - at Chloé's direction, of course! What do you want to see?"

When neither Nino nor Alya replied, Chloé sighed.

"Urgh. Marinette and Adrien. She's in love with him but too scared to do anything about it, he's in love with her but is too stupid to realise it. You two are trying to get them together, right? Well, you're doing a terrible job, and you obviously need my help. That clear enough for you?"

"No!", said Alya and Nino in unison. "What the hell, Chloé? Why are you suddenly interested in this? If you think I'm going to help you with some evil plan to hurt Marinette…"

"Oh quit your yapping, Césaire. My intentions are pure. Ask Sabrina." On cue, Sabrina dug a sheet of paper out of her folder that said 'Certificate of Purest Intentions' in crayons.

Alya shook her head. "You hate Marinette! And you want to date Adrien for yourself, everybody knows that! I'm not buying any of this. I swear, if you come to close to my girl…"

Chloé waved dismissively.

"Yes, it's true, Dupain-Cheng and I aren't the best of friends, and I did have a certain romantic interest in my Adri-chou. But sometimes, sacrifices have to be made for the greater good."

"I know you, Chloé. When you say that, you're generally planning to sacrifice someone else. And what greater good? Are you telling me you think Adrien's and Marinette's happiness is a greater good?"

"No!", shouted Sabrina. "It's much more important than that: It's about Chloé's money."

What now? Alya was completely lost. Thankfully, Nino stepped in.

"Yo, dude, you're gonna have to explain that. What does her money have to do with any of that?"

Chloé took a deep breath. "I believe that if Marinette goes unchecked, she will start a communist world revolution that will completely destroy my life style. As you know, Marinette has a strong sense of justice, and since the start of this school year, she's lost all restraint about following it."

In parallel, Sabrina showed a sheet of paper with a graph. It had two curves. The one labelled 'Marinette's anger at injustice' was steadily going up over the months. The one labelled 'Marinette chill' dropped quickly near zero and seemed to be close to going negative.

"It's only a matter of time before she stops going after people being a bit unkind or lying, and starts showing her anger at the capitalist system that gives me my luxury and gives you the opportunity to admire me in my luxury. And that little class traitor might just be able to pull it off."

Sabrina showed more graphs, apparently comparing Chloé's net worth to Marinette's sleepiness.

"Wait, class traitor? Chloé, what are you talking about? …are you the actual Akuma?"

Chloé snorted. "Marinette is the daughter of small business owners, and thus petite bourgeoisie. Marxian theory states that these people usually to look up to the rich and powerful. They try to follow and serve them, in the hopes of gaining a tiny bit of wealth and status themselves. You know, like Sabrina here."

The red-head nodded happily. "Helping Chloé is much easier than having any of that 'hopes and dreams' stuff!"

"Shut up, you're bringing me down", said Chloé. "Now, obviously the petty bourgeoisie won't ever be on the same level as the rich, that would be ridiculous. But they're supposed to fear the proletariat because that represents loosing what little wealth and status they have. Marinette, though? She doesn't know any of that, and that little do-gooder would be super upset if you told her that. Absolutely ridiculous!"

"Why do you know so much about marxist theory?" asked Nino, trying to slow down Chloé's flood of words.

"Duh! I've been reading up on it. Gotta know what the enemy is thinking!", replied the blonde. "Anyway, Marinette can probably do anything if she sets her mind to it."

Sabrina pulled out another chart, labelled "Marinette's successes." Alya didn't need to look at it to know that it was true, but it was shocking to hear Chloé say something like that.

"Luckily, there is a sure-fire way to sabotage Marinette. We have to make sure she actually becomes a member of the rich class, and ideally, distracted as well. And the solution is really easy: She has to marry Adrien as soon as possible."

The next chart showed Marinette's ability to talk compared to her distance to Adrien. Alya stared dumbly at it.

Sabrina took this as interest. "I know you'd think it'd be linear," she said, "but if you look at the data, I think an inverse square law fits much…"

"STOP", shouted Alya. "All that communism and charts and stuff… this is crazy even for you, Chloé! Marinette is just a normal girl with a normal life, not some sort of revolutionary!"

Chloé sighed. "It seems the charts aren't working. Fine. Let me try this differently. Close your eyes everybody."

Alya had no intention of closing her eyes around Chloé, but was surprised to see that the blond closed her eyes first, together with Sabrina.

"Imagine you're on a street in Paris, together with all of your friends. Let's say early autumn. It smells like something burning. There is no normal traffic noise, but a lot of people are running and shouting elsewhere. Overhead, helicopters are circling. In front of you, the road is blocked off with a giant pile of stuff: Mattresses, grandfather clocks, Ikea bookshelves, a yellow Renault Twingo, plastic house plants…"

"Dude, that's oddly specific," said Nino. Chloé opened her eyes and looked at him with her best death glare.

"Of course it's specific! I've been having this nightmare for two weeks now, you better believe I can remember it! Urgh, ridiculous, utterly ridiculous! Now keep your eyes closed.

As I was saying, there is this barricade, at least three meters high. On top of it, you see Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She's wearing an amazing blue dress with white highlights that she's probably designed herself. In her hand, she has a red flag that she made out of a broomstick and some red fabric she had lying around. The wind is playing with her beautiful hair, and in the evening light, it's doing that thing where you're not sure whether it's black with blue highlights, or blue with black accents, but either way, it's mesmerising, and you could spend hours just admiring at it."

Around them, a chorus of voices said "Yeah" dreamily. Belatedly, Alya noticed that she was one of them. She opened her eyes and saw that apparently most of the rest of the class had somehow managed to join them under or near their table.

"Are you sure that this dream is a nightmare?", said Alix with a curious smirk on her face. Chloé waved dismissively.

"Of course I'm sure. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. She's threatening my money, so it's a nightmare, simple as that. Where was I? Oh yes. Marinette is looking at you with these deep blue eyes, you know, the way she sometimes does, when it seems like she's seeing right into your soul. And she's giving you that little smile that seems to say that despite everything, she can see something good there. Something worthy.

And then she gets that look she gets when she's about to ask you for something big, but she knows it's the right thing, and she knows she will convince you of it too, and she starts to speak. She says,

'Let's go, children of the fatherland! The glorious day has arrived! For too long, we have suffered under those who think they are right because they are rich. The people who own most of this city just keep taking more, and deny us what little is left. They destroy our lives, and they're destroying the planet. They get to flaunt the laws and have others punished for their mistakes, just because they got rich parents. It is unfair! But together, we can change it. We can build a new world, without the tyranny of money. One where people are not judged on the size of their briefcase, but their power to be good to one another. Where each will give according to their ability, and receive according to their need. Here and now, our generation has the chance to build a better world for all generations to come! We will make our stand here for liberty, equality and sisterhood! Are you with me!?'"

The entire class erupted in cheers.

"Yeah!"

"Awesome!"

"Let's go to city hall! Death to the tyrants!"

"We'll show these rich folks who is boss!"

"This is the final struggle! Let us group together!"

"I've used a hammer once, I can build a guillotine!"

Alya was shouting the loudest. Yeah, imaginary Marinette was right! It was time to go out and do something! She'd follow her friend–

"And now," said Chloé, very loudly, "Adrien walks up. As usual, he has no clue what's going on. He looks at Marinette with that special soft look that he only has for her, not that he knows it. And he says, 'You're looking really nice today, Marinette. What are you doing?'"

The revolutionary fervor went even quicker than it had come. Alya tried to shake it, but the mental movie kept playing.

"Oh, hello, Adrien!", began Mental Marinette. "You're revolting, I mean, we're revolvers, no, wait, I want to produce a seizure, no, I mean to seize produce, I mean..."

Before Alya's mental eye, imaginary Marinette stumbled on a disused landline phone that had become part of the barricade, and began tumbling down...

She opened her eyes, surprised. What was that? Why were all her classmates around her, looking just as surprised? Why was Kim waving his T-shirt like a red flag... hang on, it felt like she had grabbed something...

Where did that pitchfork in her hand come from!?

She tried discretely to put the farming tool away as the rest of the class returned to their own tables, loudly disappointed and dejected. Chloé just smiled.

"And that's why I think it's in my interest to get Adrien and Marinette together. So, you in, Césaire?"

Alya shrugged and shook her head slowly. She was more than used to crazy, thanks to a lifetime's worth of superhero fights all before her 15th birthday, but this was something else entirely. She thought for a moment, trying to find something, anything, to make Chloé go away.

"Well, suppose we did work with you, Chloé. You're still making this seem to easy. I mean, what about Kagami?"

Chloé considered the objection. "Kagami? Hm… Yeah, you're right. We'll pencil her in as plan B if the Adrien thing fails… but I really don't think we should spend too much time on that. Whenever I dream about Marinette's wedding day, the person in the black suit is someone blond."

Alya held her head in her hands and tried to suppress a scream. She was this close to breaking something out of frustration, probably her new pitchfork. How could this day get any crazier than this?

Chloé meanwhile continued on.

"Anyway, I'm fairly certain Adrien doesn't know that Marinette is Ladybug, but do you think she knows he's Chat Noir?"


End file.
